The Past is Prologue

Thanks to everyone for the lovely responses to my post about my Grandpa. I am glad I was able to convey my feelings about him to the world. There are many people we meet in this life who are cool people, but who never get the recognition that we think that they should . . .

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In my quest to continue to become a member of the 21st century, this weekend I finally got an iPod. Mr. Random had been encouraging me to get one for months, and yesterday – needing a bit of retail therapy – we went on down to the Apple Store and got one. I was filled with much anxiety about it, though – that’s a lot of money for what’s basically just a fancy gadget. (Gee, do I sound like a cranky old man?) I spent a good chunk of yesterday evening uploading half of my CDs and now have 499 songs at my fingertips.

It may just have been the luck of what I uploaded, but I seem to own a lot of really mellow music – a lot of folky stuff, a lot of classical, a lot of jazz, a lot of old standards. I like good voices, good stripped-down instrumentation and good lyrics. I do have a lot of upbeat, pop stuff . . . but, it is all on cassettes! Because my formative music-buying years were in the late 80’s/early 90’s, I have a lot of really cool music that I would love to have uploaded to my iPod so I can channel my inner 18 year old again, but doing so would be quite a pain . . . unless anyone knows of a cheap way convert them?

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The reason I finally bought the iPod, was that I needed a bit of retail therapy. Mr. Random and I were supposed to take my parents to dinner at a local barbeque place in honor of Father’s Day, and we were going to give my dad a present of 4 tickets to a Washington Nationals game in really excellent seats. (We were giving him the tickets because we can’t use them on that date, but he doesn’t need to know that.) My Dad cancelled at the last minute, since had had to go out of town to a funeral a few days last week and wanted to help my mom get ready for her business trip to Florida for two weeks. Which, I guess is valid, but it did hurt my feelings. I actually had been looking forward to the dinner, since I hadn’t seen my folks since Mother’s Day. Also, my dad cancelled another time we had invited him to dinner while Mr. Random’s Mom was here – so there was a bit of a history. I’m probably making too much of this and I’ll get over it . . . I’m still debating whether to still give him the tickets, though . . .

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Went to see The Tempest on Thursday. It was a good production, but I was thrown off by some of this company’s interpretations of the plot. They left out a few of the not-so-minor characters, who actually added some important elements to the plot, and portrayed Caliban as mentally disturbed and hearing voices in his head to replace the characters. I wasn’t real thrilled with that . . .

Next play up for me to see: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Wooohooo!

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I’m doing more ESL subbing this week, this time for a drop-in conversation class. I’m used to having a set bunch of people to educate for 10 to 12 weeks, so this is a new experience for me – I don’t need to do as much lesson planning and the key is to just have everyone talk and practice their English in a non-threatening environment. Very low key . . . perfect for me to do during the summer . . .

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The weather is going to be DC summer hot this week. I’ve already received more mosquito bites this season than I’ve received in the past 5 years: This past week brought seven mosquito bites on my legs and thighs. I now have a bottle of OFF tucked away in my purse, along with a tube of sunscreen. I will not be caught off guard again!

OK, the last few songs on my iPod have been by: Allison Krauss, Fiona Apple, Paul Simon, Eddie From Ohio, and Diana Krall. Yes, I really need to finish uploading some other albums on here or this machine is going to put me to sleep . . .

The last two CDs I bought were The Puppini Sisters’ Betcha Bottom Dollar and Pink Martini’s Hey Eugene! What does this say about me?

What are you all listening to these days? I’m looking for ideas . . .